This collects the two albums the superstar “trio” made in the eighties and nineties, plus an extra disc of unreleased and alternate takes.

The released albums were always a little too pristine for my taste. Hearing the tracks all at once didn’t exactly reverse that judgment, though it did allow me to fully appreciate the sheer craft-work driven improbability of it all.

Given the restrictive natures of both Harris’s and Ronstadt’s art–we’re talking about two people who always had a hard time loosening up–it shouldn’t come as a big surprise that the real keepers are on the throwaway disc. The women who were never all that comfortable with the spotlight light up when it’s off, while Dolly just keeps on being Dolly. In that context, it seems no more than natural that “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues,” a great song that’s been searching for a home for decades, would finally get the definitive take it deserves.

2) Tom Petty and the HeartbreakersEcho (1999)

A modern blues, filled with all the hit-maker’s recognizable touches and a lot of things too many people assumed he couldn’t do besides.

Maybe that assumption was rooted in not paying enough attention. If so, I certainly do not exempt myself.

One effect of getting to know this album in recent years has been a better understanding of just how deep those hits had to strike–again and again, back when it seemed they lived entirely on the surface–in order to reach one generation after another in a way that was almost unheard of for any other rocker of his generation. Singling out the first cut is a little obvious, but first cuts are for leading you in. This leads you in.

8) The OrlonsBest of(1961-1966) (2005)

Auteurs of the Watusi and, you might think, the most faceless of the handful of girl groups who sustained even a modest string of hits.

While I wouldn’t say personality was their strong suit, this still sustains easily over half a decade and twenty sides. “Wah-Watusi” aside, they may never have been trend-setters (even that was a cover). But they kept up, no small thing when the Pop World was moving as past as it did during the years in question.

And, as often happens with these “obscure” artists, there’s a knockout hidden in the shadows that will lay you flat if you have your back turned.

I always loved the English spelling. Made it seem like it should be some kind of genteel sequel to a Cat Stevens album.

I know it’s sold a bajillion copies (thirty, forty million, like that) and been played to death…but it never wears out. Certainly not in 2016, when it sounded more contemporary than ever and stayed at the top of my playlist for the year. Another thing I like about it is that it broke contemporaneously with Punk Rock, which it buried then and buries now, not least because it’s a lot more “punk” than “God Save the Queen”…if by “punk” we mean “alive.”

Of course, these days it’s become even stronger. This edition restores Stevie Nicks’s “Silver Springs” to its original running order (the 3-Disc version released subsequently puts it at the end for some reason) and includes a disc of outtakes that, for once, deepens and contextualizes the finished product. You can click on the link above for my full take on all that. But in case you don’t make it over there, this little killer should still not be missed.

Playing next to Patty Loveless or even George Strait on the radio in his golden decade, Chesnutt seemed like a real if modest talent who reached an epic high now and then.

From this distance, across thirty tracks and a quarter of a century, he seems more like a minor miracle. He certainly wasn’t afraid of competition. He doesn’t embarrass himself on Don Gibson’s “Woman (Sensuous Woman)” or John Anderson’s “Down in Tennessee,” and bests Waylon on “Broken Promise Land,” which is one of those epic highs I mentioned.

It’s not like I didn’t know he had a solid best of in him. “Brother Jukebox,” “Bubba Shot the Jukebox” “It Sure is Monday”–the titles alone always could bring a smile. But this sustains, in part, because his most epic high point of all–as great a song ever written about the intricacies of not breaking up–came early and two long discs gives the listener time to develop some perspective.

If you click the link, be sure to crank the volume.

5) The Easybeats The Definitive Anthology (1965-1969) (1996)

Speaking of cranking the volume.

Here’s fifty-six tracks that make a case for the boys who built the bones of Australia’s not-exactly-inconsequential rock and roll legacy by being the greatest garage band this side of Paul Revere and the Raiders.

I’m not gonna say they ever quite got up to “Friday On My Mind” again but not many got there once and, of those who did, few outside the legends sustained anything like this level of interest. Of course, they should never have taken on “River Deep, Mountain High,” but it brought a smile to think they had the nerve to try. And smile was what just about every other one of these fifty-six tracks made me do as I listened to them chase every trend of the era and catch one after another for the briefest, most transient, most exhilarating moment. Pick to Click: “Good Times” (which sure sounds like it cops at least one of its riffs from the Orlons’ “Don’t Hang Up”).

4) The PlattersThe Ballads (1953-1959) (2013)

Shelter from the storm.

If ballad singing is ever given its proper place in the Rock and Roll Narrative, the Platters’ lead singer, Tony Williams, will be as celebrated as Chuck Berry. Until then, you can search around for ways to hear him: this is the best I’ve found.

Great as any individual cut–or any short compilation–may be, you can’t really feel the weight of Williams’ accomplishment until you dig into something like this: thirty-three slices of heaven right here on earth.

A sly turn of the cards: Here, the Isleys cover mostly white acts, though not necessarily the ones who had spent the previous decade so profitably covering them.

It might have been conceived as a gimmick, but they dug in too deep for it to come across that way on record. “Ohio” meant more in their hands than any other, not just because they cross-bred it with Jimi Hendrix’s “Machine Gun’,” but because they were from Ohio. Unlike say, Kent State survivor, Chrissie Hynde, who grew up being persecuted by the white middle class in Akron and got out as soon as possible, they never left home spiritually, no matter how far their feet roamed.

I wonder if that’s why I–who always heard “Fire and Rain” as a great record even in its callow original–find their cover illuminating far beyond the usual “black people are deeper” shuck and jive? I’ve stated it before, but this is the sound of some lost soul looking for his people over the next hill. Pick to click: “Cold Bologna” (the only cut besides “Machine Gun” that doesn’t “give back” to a white boy).

2) Dwight YoakumGuitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc. (1986)

Thus began the odd, often glorious career of Dwight Yoakum, slick traditionalist.

Right there at the beginning–too clever title and all–I don’t hear the concept quite working. Pleasant enough but not as inspired as its rep. So when I put this one on it’s mostly for background music.

Martha Reeves might be due a Vocalist of the Month essay pretty soon, so I’ll leave any deep thoughts for later. This beautiful thing was part of a three-artist series released in conjunction with similarly glorious 2-Disc sets on the Marvelettes and Mary Wells. There’s not a weak track on any of them.

What I hadn’t realized before was that if Dwight’s “South of Cincinnati” ever needs a sister record, it’s right here, in Martha’s finest vocal, equal to anything the powerhouses at Motown ever managed and, unlike most of the theirs and most of hers–which were only “Dancing in the Street,” “Heat Wave,” “Nowhere to Run,” “In My Lonely Room”– half-hidden by time.

If anyone could be said to have “invented” the garage band ethos, Buck Ormsby, who passed on October 29th of this relentlessly horrible year, has as much claim as anyone. Much as I”m certain he’d disagree, maybe it’s just as well that, he, of all people, will not live to see what’s coming next, as the things he did as much as anyone could to prevent inevitably wash over us. If his contributions are the among the traces left behind–and you can bet they’ll be among the first things the new Overlords try to erase from human memory–then the future will at least have a chance.

SPANISH CASTLE WIZARD…. Dave Marsh writes: Buck Ormsby was the guitar player in the Wailers of “Tall Cool One” and the leader of all the madhouse rock that came after him and his great band that rescued “Louie Louie” from a trash-heap.

Now, this won’t mean a damned thing to anyone not fully steeped — soaked to the DNA — in Pacific Northwest rock’n’roll lore. But without Buck, and the shows he did with the Wailers and other bands he was in, at the Spanish Castle (not a figment of Jimi Hendrix’s imagination but a true crazoid rocker hatchery) and elsewhere in Seattle and Tacoma and Portland, that whole area, there would not have been the Kingsmen doing “Louie Louie” (because they were only doing it ‘cause they’d seen the Wailers do it), there would not have been any of the Sonics, etc. powerhouse garage punk music, there wouldn’t be any memory of “Louie” at all.

He was a pioneer in having a band own its masters (and for that matter, its record company), he was a champion of the lost memory of Rockin’ Robin Roberts, of the blues and R&B musicians they copped all their licks from before warping them into teenage overdrive. He was one of the toughest guys I ever met and although I usually couldn’t deliver, I’m proud of the fact that he always at least tried to include me in all his over-ambitious projects. He had a vision, more vision than pretty much anybody out there, certainly more vision than anybody in his area until the grunge gangs evolved (and that wouldn’t have happened without the foundations he laid, and there’s nobody part of it I can think of it who was as visionary as Buck was on a bad day). And nobody outside of Seattle-Tacoma-Portland will remember him in a half inch of obituary.

But I can’t forget. He was my shepherd when I wrote the “Louie” book. But it wasn’t just that. He was a throwback to every indomitable rock’n’roll impresario I’ve known from Jeep Holland to Frank Barsalona. He was even in his own merciless way a prefiguration of Little Steven. I own no higher praise.

I told Eric Predoehl, the “Louie” archivist who’s been close to finishing a Louie Louie documentary for the past 25 years that my reaction to the news was “Aw fuck” because I figured that was what Buck would have said. They tore down the Castle to widen the highway, or something equally useless. They will never tear down Buck Ormsby because they can’t even reach that high.

Take it from Jimi, who was there, up front copping licks from all those heroes, and didn’t neglect them as he became one:

Hang on, My Darling, YeahHang on if you want to goIt puts everything else on the shelfWith just a little bit of Spanish Castle MagicJust a little bit of daydream here and there.

Though, in the end, the musicians he aided and abetted on the road to freedom did the best job of all:

This year’s performing nominees for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame were announced last week. I always like to put in my two cents and I try to come up with a new approach each year. This year, with artists I have strong feelings about being in short supply on the ballot, I’ve decided to list the actual nominees next to the artist they most resemble (spiritually or temporally) who is more deserving.

You know. According to me.

And rock and roll. Let’s not forget rock and roll.

It’s a long ballot this year, so be sure to strap on your seat-belt. And please, if your sphincter is, as Ferris Bueller might have it, prone to making diamonds from charcoal, proceed with caution…

Actual Nominee: Bad Brains. I don’t really know much about them, but, listening on YouTube, they sound like every other hardcore band except the Minutemen. Like most such bands (not the Minutemen), they started out pretentious (jazz fusion according to Wikipedia and who is surprised?) until they found out where the true belief they could ,milk a ready-made cult career from lay. I only listened to a few cuts, but they certainly sound as if they always knew which side of the bread the butter was on.

Dream Ballot: The Minutemen. I listened to one of their albums all the way through once when I was in my twenties. I’m in my fifties now and I’m still waiting to reach an emotionally secure place before I listen again. I don’t know much about hardcore but I know real genius and the sound of nerves being scraped raw when I hear it.

Actual Nominee: Chaka Khan. Fine. Unlike most rock and roll narrativists, and most of the Hall’s voters, I’m not ready to forget about black people in the seventies. Speaking of which…

Dream Ballot:Rufus, featuring Chaka Khan. Yes, Chaka should be in. She should be in with her great interracial funk band, and they should pave the way for the other great funk bands, interracial (War, Hot Chocolate, KC and the Sunshine Band), and otherwise (Kool and the Gang, Ohio Players, Commodores). It seems like the more the nominating committee screws these things up, the more things stay the same.

Actual Nominee: Chic. They should be in. They’ve been consistently nominated for years but can’t overcome the disco hatred. No surprise there. Donna Summer had to die to get in. Even so, they aren’t the most deserving in this genre. That would be…

Dream Ballot:Barry White. Chic has been on the ballot ten times. You’d think they could nominate an even more popular, more innovative and more iconic artist from the same basic gene pool at least once. Come on people. Let’s at least try to make it look like we know what we’re doing!

Actual Nominee:Depeche Mode.Drone music. Admittedly, not my thing. Lots of hits in England and I don’t like to step on other people’s tastes, let alone their passions, but If somebody asked for indisputable evidence of why Britannia no longer rules the waves and soon won’t rule Britannia, I’d play them Depeche Mode music all night long. They could make up their own minds about whether that’s a good thing. Might be more useful if they at least pointed to something better, instead of a black hole.

Dream Ballot: Roxette. I was gonna go with Eurythmics, though they aren’t of the same ilk either (and might actually get on the real ballot some day). But, broadly, this is all Europop, and if there is going to be Europop, then there ought to at least be a fun single every now and then.

Actual Nominee: Electric Light Orchestra (ELO). The early lineup included Roy Wood, and the RRHOF is including Wood in the lineup that will be inducted if they get the votes. They aren’t including Roy Wood for what he did in ELO, which means they are tacitly acknowledging that this really ought to be…

Dream Ballot: The Move/ELO. They did this for Faces/Small Faces which actually made less sense (The Faces were a much cleaner break from the Small Faces than ELO were from the Move) but certainly opened up nominating possibilities. If you have two borderline deserving bands linked by shared membership, why not just put them together? We could have Free/Bad Company or Manfred Mann/Earth Band, maybe one or two others I’m not thinking of right now. It makes more sense than a lot of other sins of commission/omission presently on the Hall’s head. The Move were probably deserving on their own, despite their lack of success in America. ELO are marginally deserving anyway, and not just because of their massive success in America. Why oh why does the Hall continually shadow box. You had a good idea there a few years back. Run with it.

Actual Nominee: The J. Geils Band. It’s not that the J. Geils Band aren’t deserving. They are. And it’s getting late. They’ve been eligible for a long time. But if we’re mining the White Boy Stomp vein, then let’s go with my old standby…

Dream Ballot: Paul Revere and the Raiders. One of my criteria is that if you either helped define a major genre or helped invent an important minor one, you should be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The Raiders had a hand in inventing what came to be called garage rock. They certainly helped define it, ergo it doesn’t matter if you call garage rock major or minor. And they were the only band that fits well within even the narrowest definition of the ethos to have a major run of hits. That they’ve never been on the ballot for a hall that includes the Dave Clark Five and the Hollies (both deserving, but still) is silly, really. [Alternate pick: Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels.]

Actual Nominee: Jane’s Addiction. A sort of thrash band with sort of Power Pop vocals. They started in the mid-eighties and you can feel them giving in to the awfulness of the times on just about any record I’ve heard (which I confess isn’t all that many, those I’ve heard not making me feel like I’ve missed anything except more dreariness, more unearned angst, more acceptance of defeat as the natural and permanent human condition we should all just learn to live with). Again, I realize these punk/alternative/alt metal//indie/thrash/etc. bands have had a profound impact on somebody’s life. I hate having to dis anybody’s taste. Still….nobody should take the world this hard unless they’ve been in a war.

Dream Ballot: Big Star. It doesn’t even matter who you (or I) like. The RRHOF has a responsibility to history. Putting Jane’s Addiction on a ballot where Big Star have never appeared amounts to criminal negligence.

Actual Nominee: Janet Jackson. No problem here. Miss Jackson had an enormous career and deserves to be in, maybe even on this ballot. But I’m curious…

Dream Ballot:Cyndi Lauper. Leaving aside why Dionne Warwick–Dionne Warwick!–has never appeared on a ballot, and sticking to the same era, why not do the all the way right thing and go with Cyndi? She made the best album of the eighties, was the last truly inventive vocalist of the rock and roll era (just before the suits allowed the machines to take over–and at a loss on the profit sheet, too–because the machines never talk back), and her acceptance speech would likely be even more priceless than her average interview.

Actual Nominee: Joan Baez. Inducting Joan Baez into the RRHOF as a performer would be a joke. She’s never made anything resembling a great rock and roll record. She’s a perfect candidate, however, for my long-running common sense proposal to have a “Contemporary Influence” category, especially now that the “Early Influence” category is running dry. Other worthy candidates for a concept which could acknowledge great artists who influenced their rock and roll contemporaries without being quite “of” them, would be oft-mentioned names like Patsy Cline and Willie Nelson (country), the Kingston Trio (folk), or even Barbra Streisand or Dean Martin (pop). It would have also been the right category for Miles Davis (already inducted as a performer) and a number of blues acts. But, if this category is not to exist, then at least go with….

Dream Ballot: Peter, Paul and Mary. They were the ones who put Bob Dylan on the charts, two years before the Byrds. If you think this–or Dylan becoming a major star–was merely inevitable, you weren’t quite paying attention. Woody Guthrie never made it…and don’t think he couldn’t have, if PP&M had been there to provide the bridge to the mainstream (whether he would have accepted it is another question, but my guess is he would have). Besides, unlike most of the people who would properly belong in a Contemporary Influence category, they actually made a great rock and roll record…which is not nothing, even if they just did it to prove they could to people who thought “I Dig Rock and Roll Music” was only a joke.

Actual Nominee: Joe Tex. No complaints. No arguments. Joe Tex is the last of the first-rank soul men not to be inducted. He should be.

Dream Ballot: Joe Tex.

Actual Nominee: Journey. I love, without irony or reservation, “Lovin’ Touchin’ Squeezin.” It’s a great record, period. And I don’t hate the stuff everybody else hates. i don’t listen to it, but I don’t run screaming from the room if it’s on either, or get a knot in my stomach that makes me want to start ranting about the decline and fall of civilization (and you know I can find endless reasons to do that). Plus, they sold a bajillion records. Still….Seriously?

Dream Ballot: Three Dog Night. The only reason Three Dog Night weren’t in a long time ago is they didn’t write their hits. If you follow along here, you know that’s not a good reason. Especially when, on average, their hits were a lot greater than Journey’s. (Alternate pick: Def Leppard…they have the advantage of being better than Journey and a more direct replacement. They just weren’t as good as Three Dog Night.)

Actual Nominee: Kraftwerk. Another good candidate for Contemporary Influence, especially since the Nominating Committee, which would control such a category, seems to love them. Again, this not being the case…

Dream Ballot: Roxy Music. Actually, I’m not the best person to make a case for them, but at least they had some hits and a tangential connection to rock and roll. This would also tacitly acknowledge and directly honor the fine work from Brian Eno’s and Bryan Ferry’s solo careers. And does anyone really believe they were less influential than Kraftwerk?

Actual Nominee: MC5. I let my MC5 CDs go in the great CD selloff of 2002. I liked them pretty well, but I never got around to buying them back. As one of the six great bands (The Stooges, Big Star, The Ramones, Mott the Hoople and one I’m about to mention were the others) who bridged the garage band ethos to punk, they should be in. I’d pick them last, mind you (The Stooges and the Ramones, the two I might have picked them ahead of, are already in), but they should be in. Some day. Meanwhile…

Dream Ballot: The New York Dolls. I wonder what might have happened if they had lasted longer. I always loved this performance on The Midnight Special (that they were even on tells you how great The Midnight Special was), where they start with about six fans and end with about eight. I don’t know how far another five years would have taken them…to a hundred maybe? a thousand?….but I bet they’d be in the Hall already if they had made it that far.

Actual Nominee: Pearl Jam. Of course they’ll get in. All that cred. They can’t miss. And that’s fine. They helped define grunge. That’s vital, maybe even major. Well deserving of induction. But here’s the thing…

Dream Ballot: The Shangri-Las. Just curious, but besides turning up the amps and groaning a lot, what did Eddie Vedder do in a quarter-century that Mary Weiss didn’t do, without a trace of his trademark stridency, in three minutes on her first hit? What new place did he get to? Go ahead. Explain it to me. Please….

[NOTE: For any of my fellow Shangs’ aficionados, this link contains an intro I’ve never heard before, plus the extended finale that I’ve linked in the past. It’s the story that never ends.]

Actual Nominee: Steppenwolf. Is Biker Rock really a genre? Is introducing the phrase “heavy metal” to the world enough, in and of itself, to ensure enshrinement? I’m not sure, but if either of these be the case, Steppenwolf should be voted in immediately. Just in case it’s otherwise…

Dream Ballot: Lee Michaels. Why not? If we’ve come this far down the where-can-we-find-more-White-Boys-to-nominate road, aren’t we just messing with people? (Alternate pick: The Guess Who.)

Actual Nominee: The Cars. Cheap Trick got in last year and it’s nice to see to see Power Pop getting some love. The Cars were probably also the most successful New Wave band after Blondie (already in), so I’d always consider voting for them. However…

Dream Ballot: Raspberries. If you really started and/or mainstreamed the Power Pop thing (to the extent that somebody was going to be forced to give it a name), and if your best records are better than anything the thing produced afterwards (well, except for the Go-Go’s maybe), and your front man was the biggest single talent in the whole history of the thing, then shouldn’t you be first in line?

Actual Nominee: The Zombies. I like the Zombies plenty. But the depth of the Nominating Committee’s love for them is a little odd. A few great singles and a cult album (Odessey and Oracle) that has traveled the classic critical journey once outlined by Malcolm Cowley (it boiled down to everything now underrated will eventually be overrated and vice versa) is a borderline HOF career at best.

Dream Ballot: Manfred Mann. Especially if you include all its incarnations (and after the Hall-approved Faces/Small Faces induction, why wouldn’t you?), the never-nominated Manfreds are more deserving on every level. The first version made greater singles and more of them. The second version morphed into Bob Dylan’s favorite interpreters of his music and, along the way, made an album (called The Mighty Quinn in the U.S.) which sounds better to these ears than Odessey and Oracle ever did. Then the third and fourth versions (called Chapter Three and Earth Band) became long running jazz fusion/classic rock troupers. (And yeah, I love their “Blinded By the Light” in both its single and album versions. We all have our heresies.) Mann’s greatest genius was for discovering standout vocalists to sell his concepts every step of the way. And, whatever gets played from the stage of next year’s induction ceremony, I bet it won’t be as good as this…

Actual Nominee: Tupac Shakur. If this is going to re-open the door for pioneers like Afrika Bambaataa or LL Cool J or Eric B. and Rakim, then fine and dandy. They’ve all been on the ballot before. I hope they won’t be forgotten in the coming years, when pressure to induct more modern hip-hop acts grows and when five will get you twenty the Hall’s obvious but never acknowledged penchant for quotas and tokenism remains firmly in place. Still, for me…

Dream Ballot: Naughty By Nature. Yes, even above all the rest. I still think “O.P.P.” is the greatest hip-hop record. I still think “Mourn You Til I Join You,” is the greatest tribute record in a genre that has required far too many. I still think “How will I do it, how will I make it? I won’t, that’s how,” is the finest rap line, (just ahead of Ice-T’s “How can there be justice on stolen land?”) Plenty of early rockabilly stars made it in on less (and deservedly). So sue me.

Actual Nominee: Yes. Prog rock. Yes, of course. That will be very useful in the days to come. Most helpful.

Dream Ballot: Fairport Convention. This year, of all years, we really should find every excuse to listen close. Admittedly, next year promises to be worse.

1) I didn’t include solo artists who are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as part of a group or one off groups who contain Hall of Fame members (so no Jerry Butler or Derek and the Dominoes for instance).

2) I didn’t include comps (no Dionne Warwick, Paul Revere and the Raiders, etc. who I know mostly through greatest hits packages).

3) I didn’t include anyone who has been inducted in one of the “extra” categories (so no Carole King, since she’s in as a songwriter).

4) I didn’t include anyone who isn’t eligible yet (No Roots or Moby, for instance….you’d be surprised how often this comes up in on-line discussions…for the record, an artist becomes eligible in the “Performer” category 25 years after the Hall determines they released their first record).

5) As the title of this post indicates, I didn’t include artists who have been nominated but not inducted (so no War or Spinners, who would otherwise have multiple entries)

6) This is not an argument that any or all of these acts should actually be in the Hall of Fame. Some should be, some shouldn’t, but I’ve made those arguments elsewhere (you can check the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame category on the right for further details if interested).

All that to keep it simple. Like to 25 or so**. Otherwise it was gonna get complicated. (**Note, that 25 was a general number for the total. Pretty sure it’s gonna be more like 30…or so. I keep remembering.)

So, in roughly chronological order (by year, but I didn’t look up month and day for those in the same year):

The Shangri-Las I Can Never Go Home Any More (1965)

Note: I’ve never actually owned this album. I do have the original release Shangri-Las 65, which would be worthy on its own. This drops “Dum, Dum Ditty” (perhaps their weakest track) and adds the title track (one of their greatest) so it’s a no-brainer it’s the better album, even before taking the killer cover photo into consideration. I have a private theory that this cast a longer and deeper shadow than Rubber Soul. Me and Amy Winehouse are going to collaborate on a white paper proving this theory next time we get together at the big think tank in the sky. No neocons allowed.

Note: This is enough of a touchstone of its era it actually creates a backlash of sorts. You can prove how hip you are by preferring some other Love album to this one. Heck, you might even be right. I’ll just make my own distinction by saying several of Love’s other albums are great. This one’s on the order of a miracle. (Even with the guess-you-had-to-be-there cover, which will be a developing theme here!)

Note: American version of an LP that was called Mighty Garvey in England (with a slightly different track selection). In case that and the cover aren’t 1968 enough for you, it actually has a (wonderful) song called “Cubist Town.” Didn’t sell, even though the title track was a big hit, and didn’t get them any street cred, even though it didn’t sell. I picked it up on a very strange and exhilarating day in 1979 which also involved Boone, North Carolina, a surly record store manager, choir practice, “Beach Baby,” “Cruel War,” a made-for-TV Monkees comp and my first ever speeding ticket. Basically the kind of day you can only have when you’re eighteen. Either that or in a dollar store somewhere a short time later. The memory hazes. Either way, It’s been making me smile ever since.

Note: Most of the soul giants have at least been nominated. No love for Clarence. Then again he never sounded like a guy who expected to be treated fairly and on his first album, his mournful side meshed perfectly with his definitivelly wicked sense of the absurd.

Note: Did somebody mention 1968? Based on the cover, South might have been hanging out at Haight-Asbury. He was actually hanging out in Nashville and Atlanta which meant the entire world had gone crazy or he was some kind of visionary who couldn’t be explained by ordinary marketing schemes. I’ll take both. The still, small voice in the back of everyone’s mind, who stayed there even after “Games People Play” broke wide open.

Note: Chasing cred, they parodied themselves and everybody else. They sort of got the cred and would have really gotten it if the biggest parody (“Elenore”) hadn’t gone top ten everywhere in the English-speaking world. That’s all very representative. It should have been a catastrophe on every level. Instead it came out…wistful. They probably liked themselves better than they thought.

Note: Actually this and Mother Earth’s Living With the Animals got swept away in the great CD selloff of 2002 (along with about 98 percent of the collection I had been building for fifteen years…life’s for making mistakes and regretting them as they say) and I’ve never managed to either forget or replace them. There’s nothing here to match Animals’ “Down So Low” but my memory is that this one was more cohesive. Brilliant in any case and as foundational of the alt-country concept as anything Gram Parsons was involved in.

Note: Let’s put it this way. The name of the album is What We Did on Our Holidays. One of the cheerier tracks is called “The Lord Is in This Place…How Dreadful Is This Place.” That’s telling it like it is baby!

A new Shangri-Las video on YouTube…first in I can’t even remember how long. Reason enough all on its own…

But with tri-cornered hats?

Gee, that’s more like manna from heaven…For that, I’ll even forgive the obtrusive logo. (Given the hats and the presence of Paul Revere and the Raiders, I assume this is from Where The Action Is…Close enough to heaven for me.)

It’s that time again: Anyone wishing to participate in fan ballots can go HERE or HERE (second one actually has a small impact on the official voting).

Angst-Is-Me (meaning, me-me-me-me-me-me-me!): That’s one of the three main themes for this year’s ballot. Regrettable, but I suppose inevitable, given the direction “rock and roll” took once the rock and roll coalition fell apart in the late eighties. This will no doubt be a running theme in the future.

Anyway, count me uninformed on an era where Green Day (who I do sort of like) could pass for comic relief. I tried You-Tubing some Nine Inch Nails and Smiths. Really I did try–just couldn’t get all the way through any of their songs. But at least they seem to have struck a deep chord with their fans and I never begrudge anyone their own Shining Path.

“Sting,” on the other hand, has always struck me as a likely product of some government conspiracy–which government I’m not sure, but the Dark Arts must surely be involved. Anyway, I’m loathe to vote for a solo artist who is already in as a member of a group.

That leaves out the Velvet Underground’s Lou Reed, too. He’s far more deserving than Sting. I don’t even doubt that he’s Hall worthy–you know, once all the deserving people who aren’t already in have been taken care of.

Before I get to that, I’ll address the second major theme: Catch-As-Catch-Can.

This would include two “blues-rock” acts (the seminal Paul Butterfield Blues Band, the sturdy Stevie Ray Vaughan), the by-now obligatory rap act (N.W.A., a good one at least), a hard rock act (Joan Jett) and those fun-lovin’ auteurs of trance music (Kraftwerk).

So, in order:

The Paul Butterfield Blues Band: Fine. They would fit perfectly in my proposed category of Contemporary Influence. That would be a category where the Hall’s Nominating Committee, which already decides on Nonperformers, Musical Excellence, Sidemen, Early Influences and the like, induct artists who clearly influenced rock and roll during the rock and roll era, but don’t easily fit the Rock and Roll Performer category. It’s probably too late for this to happen, with perfect candidates like Miles Davis, Albert King and Muddy Waters already inducted as performers. The PBBB aren’t anywhere near as epic as those acts (or Patsy Cline or Peter, Paul and Mary, to mention a couple who could define my proposal). That being the case, they are basically taking up a spot on the ballot that would be better filled by far greater sixties’ “cult” acts like Love or Fairport Convention…or popular ones like Manfred Mann or Paul Revere and the Raiders.

Stevie Ray Vaughan: Solid, of course. I’d even call him rock and roll, since, by the time he came along, bringing straight blues to a mainstream audience was a kind of holy act. Not as holy as the Persuasions preserving–and modernizing–doo-wop into the seventies’ maybe, but honorable just the same. I could imagine voting for him, but only on a much weaker ballot than this one.

N.W.A.: Again, I could imagine voting for them (actually did vote for them the last time they were nominated), mainly as a way of honoring Ice Cube and Dr. Dre, who ended up being far more consequential than their original group. Maybe next year.

Kraftwerk: If we must, shouldn’t it be Roxy Music?

Joan Jett: The thing about Joan Jett is that–except for a few sides–I’ve always liked the idea of her better than the actual music. And I can’t get this quote from Suzi Quatro (who’s never been anywhere near the ballot) out of my head, (re: how she finally got through a scene she kept muffing on the set of Happy Days): “I finally decided to imitate Joan Jett imitating me.” I guess there’s a theme here: I’m not anxious to vote for somebody when there’s a better somebody who keeps not getting nominated.

That brings me to the year’s third theme, which, thankfully, is the recognition of long overdue R&B acts from the actual rock and roll era and which made up my entire ballot:

War and Spinners: I wrote about both in depth in my previous post. They are, by far, the two most deserving acts on this ballot and two of the half dozen or so most embarrassing oversights on the Hall’s record to date. Time to end all that.

Chic: I’m actually fairly lukewarm on them. But it’s clear disco isn’t going to get any further respect–that more deserving acts like K.C. and the Sunshine Band and (especially) Barry White–aren’t getting on the ballot unless and until Chic gets in. They’ve reached double-digit nominations and they fit the year’s best theme so this was an easier-than-usual call.

The Marvelettes: No, they aren’t the Chantels or the Shangri-Las, who have been unable to breach the Induction wall because the moat of ignorance (or, just possibly, chauvinism) separating the Hall’s voters from their beholden duty is deep and wide. But they are deserving–they had Motown’s first #1 (symbolic but symbols matter) and a long string of truly great singles. Easy choice, even with the caveats.

Bill Withers: Uncategorizable (as I wrote about here). Too much his own man even to really fit in with The Rising (see the War/Spinners post for details). I suspect he’s been helped by the now easy availability of his once difficult-to-hear early catalog. But, whatever good vibes brought him from nowhere to buzz-worthy in the past year, (in the fan voting, he’s doing the best by far of the acts I’m recommending) I hope they last. His induction would represent real hope for thinking outside some of the Hall-defined boxes that have become far too small for comfort.

Or, putting it all a little more simply: This…

Over this…

I mean, the End is coming soon enough. Let’s not hit the accelerator just yet.

Born Paul Revere Dick, as keyboardist, hustler, entrepreneur and visionary, he ended up leading the most successful “garage” band in the history of rock and roll. It was right that they were the most successful, seeing as how they were the best and had basically helped invent the notion (he was already fronting a local band when he got together with lead singer Mark Lindsay in 1958…they had their first hit in 1961 and recorded their version of “Louie, Louie,” the same week as the Kingsmen and in the same studio, a sequence of events I wrote about here, on the eve of the British Invasion).

The revolutionary war costumes they wore were, of course, a play on his name–and a way to stand out from the crowd (not the mention the crown, as the Brits were certainly coming). Little Steven Van Zandt has repeatedly said on his great radio show Little Steven’s Underground Garage that those costumes–so redolent of dread Show Biz–are the main reason the Raiders have never been nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Since Little Steven’s on the nominating committee, I’ll assume he knows of whence he speaks.

So maybe, on the occasion of his passing, it’s worth remembering that Paul Revere was a conscientious objector–in 1959. (His assignment to help out on the psych ward at a mental hospital strikes a chord as it sounds very much along the lines of what happened to my father when he tried to register as a C.O. in World War II, though dad got to spend a few years fighting forest fires and a few months being a psych ward test subject first–at least that’s the way he told it some of the time).

That made Revere one of the very few sixties-era musicians who ever walked the walk, and probably the only one who did so long before it was cool to even talk the talk.

And maybe it’s also worth remembering that, however many very temporary diversions there were along the way, the bands he led for nearly sixty of his 76 years (he left the road only a few months before his death) had a single mission from first to last.

This two-disc set was released by Sundazed in 2000. Basically, it sets out to demonstrate that, before they were the Ultimate Garage Band Made Good, Paul Revere and the Raiders (who came out of the Ultimate Garage Band Scene in the Pacific Northwest) were, well, the Ultimate Garage Band.

Most of Disc 2 is studio material from their early days on Columbia Records (where they were the first rock and roll band signed to the high-falutin’ home of folk, blues, jazz and other “adult” forms). I’d heard most of it before, and the repackaging is just fine–especially nice hearing all the gutbucket stuff in one handy, hard-hitting place.

But the real ear-opener is Disc 1, which captures a show the label arranged for the band to perform in front of a teenage audience in Columbia’s own studio.

According to the liner notes, this came about because, after an initial dry run–made dry in part because famous ass-dragger Mitch Miller (whose sing-a-longs were, of course, the contemporary standard of “maturity”) had scotched proper promotion of the band’s version of “Louie, Louie” which was subsequently stomped by the Kingsmen–some of the honchos were having a hard time remembering exactly why they had signed the band in the first place.

I don’t know if the resulting explosion of atomic level noise and energy made the suits any happier. I can bet it didn’t make Miller any happier and, certainly, little of the show saw the light of day at the time (though the band did soon thereafter proceed with its glorious near-decade run of hit singles).

But, however it came to pass, it now stands as a true signifier of the garage-band ethos as it has come down to us in the present day. It’s a kind of pure (or impure) reminder that “garage” bands–so called because there was a perception, which, to my knowledge has never been proved or dispoved, rather like the existence of the Deity, that many of them had formed in garages–were a phenomenon that could only have been produced by a Land of Garages, i.e., a culture that was just beginning to glimpse the possible end of its five hundred year winning streak.

To that end, it’s a joyful noise, reveling in its complete and utter abandon (to steal a phrase and turn it into a paraphrase) to an extent that can only be achieved by not giving a rip about winning streaks, cultural or otherwise. The Raiders came from a place that epitomized an attitude that wasn’t so much committed to either stealing or honoring black music as stomping all over it. Whether the object was to replace one America with another (and whether the new America would be whiter or blacker), or simply level it all into a great fruited plain shared by all is unknowable. There may have been some up-and-comers in the scenes the Raiders both participated in and inspired who contemplated such questions, but this particular band became Ultimate by leaving all of that to one side most of the time and most especially here.

Heck, by the time they break into “Crisco Party” (all the boys on one side, all the girls on the other side, now everybody….disrobe) they even manage to make orgies sound like something they are inherently not.

Namely, democratic.

Baby that was one version of Rock and Roll that has gone the way of the dodo and taken democratic America right along with it.

And, while, they may or may not have been honoring the spirit that made the streak possible (stomping on things was certainly part of that spirit), I doubt they were threatening its continuance nearly as much as the purely cynical decisions being taken concurrently in the Corridors of Power regarding troop movements in South Viet Nam (to be announced immediately after the forthcoming election…still a few months hence when this was recorded!)

True Romance, 1993

Tony Scott (Ridley’s hackier brother) directed. That he did so with a little more distinction than usual was probably due to Quentin Tarantino’s script, which has plenty wrong with it, but also has some promising, non-nihilistic aspects which, aside from the anomalous Jackie Brown, (based on an Elmore Leonard story that, like this one, has a likable and unlikely couple emerging from the mayhem) his own directing career has never come close to realizing.

Too bad.

Yeah, the I’m-so-racist-I-can’t-possibly-be-an-actual-racist-because-no-actual-racist-would-think-he-could-get-away-with-this-hee-hee attitude is there, as is the cartoon violence masquerading as some kind of arty “statement” (or, more likely, the dread non-statement statement which is such a close cousin of the political world’s style of non-apology apology that emerged around the same time) and the mind-numbing ethnic/racial/regional stereotypes.

But there was still a lot to like. Yeah, Patricia Arquette is playing a Hollywood Southerner, and, because the script has her being from Tallahassee–a place I know something about–it was more than usually annoying to note that she did not remotely remind me of anyone I’ve ever known in my forty years of hanging about the place. That plus she’s called Alabama. Which, believe me, she wouldn’t be. Not if she was from around here. The only place you would be less likely to find somebody called Alabama than Tallahassee is Alabama.

Then again, she’s Patricia Arquette, so after a few minutes I didn’t care. Whatever comes in that package, I’ll gladly buy.

That, plus Christian Slater in his all-to-brief likeable phase, a few pretty good sub-Donald-Westlake plot twists and a handful of effective music interludes (something Tarantino became famous for elsewhere, though, except for Nancy Sinatra at the beginning of one of the Kill Bill movies, I’ve never for the life of me understood why–good Lord, the man muffed Santa Esmerelda’s version of “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” which, until I saw/heard it with my own eyes/ears, I would have deemed beyond mere human capacity–I mean, with that playing, ten minutes of black screen should have been mesmerizing) kept the whole thing chugging along pretty well until the ending, which has a couple of genuinely clever and touching moments.

I’m not making any claims for it being a great movie or anything, but, if I’d seen it when it came out, I would have tagged the writer as having some genuine promise (I think I would have known Tony Scott wasn’t responsible for very much). And genuine promise he had, even after Pulp Fiction.

Shame he squandered it.

Bigger shame we rewarded him for not living up to his potential.

But you know what they say. All winning streaks–large and small–gotta end some time.

Dionne Warwick: Eligible for decades–and should have been in decades ago. It’s possible she’s being punished for all those psychic commercials she used to make which creeped everybody out and also suggested any future honors awarded in her name might run a very real risk of being delivered to the mantle of a pod-person. Be that as it may, it’s time to end this notion of excluding her, which is way more surreal than those commercials ever were. (Tried It, Can’t Deny It: “Who Can I Turn To”)

Jackie DeShannon: Peter, Paul and Mary invited her to a Bob Dylan concert in 1963 and she subsequently went back home and planted the musical and social seeds of what would become “folk-rock” all over L.A. (She’d eventually even talk up a new band called the Byrds to anyone who would listen–which was quite a lot of important people–and the band would ultimately pay her back with a shine-forever version of her “Don’t Doubt Yourself Babe” on their cataclysmic first album).

Then–with her producers striving mightily for girl-group hits in the manner of Phil Spector, she brought the concept to full flower on “Needles and Pins” and “When You Walk In The Room.” All this before the Beatles arrived in America. Which is to say, she delivered America’s basic answer to the British Invasion before the question was out of John Lennon’s mouth.

A few years down the line she more-or-less invented the Zeitgeist that became known as “singer-songwriter” (which very specifically does not merely mean singers who write songs or songwriters who sing–confounding such obviousness is what a Zeitgeist, not to mention a marketing department, is for). Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits, Laura Nyro and the solo George Harrison are all in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I don’t question their worthiness–I’m a “big hall” advocate all the way–but DeShannon’s career likely weighed more than all of them put together and, deep down, I suspect even the apostates know at least half the existing Hall couldn’t hold her coat. (Tried It Can’t Deny It: “I Can Make It With You”)

The Shangri-Las: I said in the last go-round that the Chantels were the alpha of an ethos that has had no omega and that’s true enough

But the ethos did have an apotheosis and it was here. I could make a strong case that Shangri-Las ‘65 has gone more places in the real world than Rubber Soul or Highway 61 Revisited. I mean who else joins, say, the Ramones and Madonna at the hip?

And I could also make a case that anyone who made up an entirely new way to be–a way that was accessible to anyone who had the guts to grasp it–out of their own teenage heads and Greenwich Village thrift shops defined something even bigger and grander than “girl groups”–and maybe even something bigger and grander than “rock and roll.”

But all of that–plus every other powerful, rational argument anyone could ever make (and there are plenty)–will forever pale into insignificance when their records are playing. (Tried It Can’t Deny It: “Never Again”)

Paul Revere and the Raiders: Sorry, but–as the one truly successful “garage” band (and also one of the very first and best)–aren’t they at least as significant as the Dave Clark Five or the Hollies? Nobody was rooting harder for those bands to be recognized than me, but at what point do we stop giving points just for being British?…Or taking away points just for being American? (Tried It Can’t Deny It: “Steppin’ Out”)

Love: Arthur Lee set much of the style for the Sunset Strip–the most important American scene in sixties’ rock. Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix, among others, would have been living in a very different universe–musically and sartorially–without him. And I’m big on including any act that made an era-defining album, which Forever Changes is. Especially if it’s also a genuinely great album. (Tried It Can’t Deny It: “Andmoreagain”)

Jerry Butler: What is now comfortably referred to as “soul” music was principally created and nurtured in four major “scenes” between the early sixties and mid-seventies.

The biggest, of course, was Motown.

Of the others, two–Curtis Mayfield’s Chicago and Gamble and Huff’s Philadelphia–were literally built on the foundation stone of Butler’s voice. All he contributed to the remaining third (Memphis/Muscle Shoals) was a writer’s credit on Otis Redding’s personal signature song (“I’ve Been Loving You Too Long”) and the basic lyric idea for soul’s signature song (“Respect”). As a vocalist, he’s probably alone in being a genuinely major stylist and/or influence in every black radio style from fifties’ doo-wop to sixties’ soul to seventies’ quiet storm to eighties’ urban.

Naturally, his current Rock and Roll Hall of Fame membership acknowledges the single 45 he made with the Impressions in the fifties and nothing else.

That 45 was “Your Precious Love” and it would justify ten memberships, but it’s still a raindrop in the mighty ocean of Butler’s career. Maybe, just maybe, it would be possible to rectify the situation before we put Ringo Starr and Mick Jagger in as solo acts?

Just saying. (Tried It Can’t Deny It: “Got To See If I Can’t Get Mommy (To Come Back Home)”)

The Fairport Convention: In a funny way a nice companion group to the Shangri-Las, with whom they shared the distinction of being the only other truly scarifying group of rock’s most truly scarifying decade. Often described as the progenitors (or exemplars…or something) of “English folk-rock.”

One listen to Sandy Denny on “Nottamun Town” certainly blows that and all other comforting notions to hell and gone. (Tried It Can’t Deny It: “Sloth”)

(NOTE: As before, there are other acts–including non-performers–deserving of consideration. I’m only prioritizing here….Next month, the seventies–where the real fun begins!)

(UPDATE: Just to be clear…This has nothing to do with who I think will be nominated. Just my idea of who is most deserving from each particular time period.)